Editorial: Lands bill too close to lose

Friday, Sept. 6, 2002 | 5:49 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: Sept. 8, 2002

Congress has before it a bill affecting Southern Nevada that off-roaders, developers, wilderness advocates, Republicans and Democrats all agree is good legislation. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., worked for more than a year with local interest groups to craft the Clark County Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002.

A final hurdle awaits, that of negotiating with the House over the version introduced by Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev. We hope the sticking points can be worked out, as this is a bill that deserves passage. It would designate 444,000 federal acres as wilderness, which does not deny access but prohibits development and motorized traffic except on existing roads. It would create the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area south of Henderson. It would allow a land swap with Howard Hughes Corp. to protect lands bordering Red Rock National Conservation Area. The land needed for an airport near Jean would be secured. Clark County parklands would be acquired. A total of 231,000 acres would be released from consideration for wilderness designation.

The major sticking point is water. Gibbons wants language specifically denying wilderness groundwater rights to the federal government. The Senate version is silent on this issue because the Wilderness Act of 1964 already assures that states will control groundwater. Local wilderness advocates oppose Gibbons' water language as unnecessary. They also fear intervention by national environmental groups, which wouldn't want to see that language popping up in other states' wilderness bills. They fear the national groups' intervention could mean the bill would never come to a vote in this Congress, effectively killing it. On this issue, however, we have to agree with Gibbons. Doubling the state's rights to groundwater is necessary as we fight federal plans to secure enough water for the construction of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. We must assert our r ights to groundwater everywhere in the state.

We see refusal to accept Gibbons' water-rights language as a greater threat to the bill than intervention by national environmentalists -- because the congressman hasn't shown signs of budging. We do hope he budges on other aspects of his version, however, such as his demand that areas now being released from federal wilderness consideration never again be considered. The House bill also loosens restrictions on motorized vehicles when managing the wilderness. The history of this bill has been one of compromise and we hope that spirit prevails during this final stage.